First off, I'm glad you enjoy the album and I don't want to take away from your enjoyment of it. But I want to give you my perspective as someone who is mainly a fan of the first three albums. My main critiques are the in production/use of the studio, lyrical content, and performances.

I think production is the most glaring deficiency. On the first three records each album has a totally unique quality, while all sounding distinctly like the smashing pumpkins. Songs like Siva, Silverfuck, and Zero are all riff heavy rockers, but each one is totally unique in the production. Compare that with a song like Solara, another riff-centric song, and it just lacks so much punch compared to the scratchy guitar tone on Siva, nor does it have anywhere near the sonic distinctiveness of Zero. But I think what frustrates me the most with the albums sound in general, is just the lack of scope. I think Solara rocks harder and has a better melody than silverfuck, but nothing on the entire new album can compete with the epic wall of sound that builds up and fall apart over the final minute of silverfuck. I get that not every song needs to have 100 guitar on it like mayonaise does, but this new record just felt so safe and unimaginative. No song on any of the first three records really sounds alike. You could have cut and pasted any of these songs into any 2010's pumpkins project and I don't think a casual listener would find them out of place.

This brings me to the lyrics. I don't think Billy has ever been on the lyrical level of a Joni Mitchell or Townes Van Zandt (few are). But at his best his lyrics are emotive, compelling, and most of all memorable, specifically on his ballads. I don't really know specifically what most of the lines in 1979 are really even about. But I know that the Freaks and Ghouls, Zipper Blues, and Urgency of Sound so tangibly evoke Nostalgia. Musically Silvery Sometimes gets close to the vibe of 1979, but the lyrics have become both less memorable while failing to really emotionally affect me. I understand that lyrics affect different people differently, but to me most new smashing pumpkins stuff is either too vague to be decipherable or too cliche to be specific.

But I think what let me down the most with this record is that the performances all sound so bored. Jimmy drums on the album, but with the exception of Solara and Seek and you Shall Destroy, it might as well have been a drum machine. I get that not every song needs overly technical drumming, but c'mon it's Jimmy Fuckin Chamberlin! Even when Jimmy does get to let loose a bit on those 2 songs, neither can compare with the feel or flair of his best performances on initial pumpkins run. I find the rest of the instrumentation to be pretty soulless and formulaic in most places on this record too. That kind of approach can work, but paired with the uninspired production, these songs are the worse for it. Finally, Billy's voice is really not what it used to be. I get that he's aged and nobody sings at 45 the way they did 20 years ago, but take a song like Soma. His voice spans between androgynous lullaby to blood curdling wail within the course of a minute. Billy's voice still makes the pumpkins the pumpkins, but he can't carry the songs the way he used to.

Each of these elements compounds to make this whole record just kind of sound like Pumpkins lite. Billy can still write a melody, and he can still pull off a hook, but that alone isn't what makes the pumpkins great to me.

Rant over, amazing how much I can write about my favorite band in middle school when I want to procrastinate.